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It's all about the plot, their characters were already used to full extent while they were alive, so there was nothing interesting about them any more, ... people would complain that there's too much of boring side characters. Even as it is now people complained a lot about how slowly things are going.

but this is exactly the problem. why introduce uninteresting characters in the first place? the answer is as you put it, that they served as plot devices, but characters who move the plot along can also be interesting... and should also be interesting. thats the point of reading a manga like naruto, to be interested in the characters. thats why so many people complained about the pace and story for the beginning of the war. because the bulk of the ET zombies in the first half of it are not interesting at all. they all push a plot ahead that in most cases wasn't even necessary. we already knew that characers like gaara and sai grew. we didnt need these boring tests to see that. they could have been interesting fights that got the point across just the same. or as i would prefer, to just have been left out all together

Some stuff was never explained, for example:
- what happened with Sai's "brother"? How did he die. Also to see Sai displaying real emotions. We saw the always calm Sai being enraged and attacking with full power, that was nice. Also this way he and his "brother" got a "happy end" for their story.
- what happened with Hanzou, his connection to the samurai guy and to Pain.
- Sasori did die in a strange way: he let himself be stabbed. Now he got his happy ending. Also this let Kankuro become the official number one puppet master of this generation.
- Gaara also had a pain hidden in him like Naruto had before he met his "evil self" and then his mother. Usually in shonen manga when such mental problems are resolved the character also gets better at fighting

Some stuff was never explained, for example:
- what happened with Sai's "brother"? How did he die.

wasnt this explained in a "filler" anime episode?? and while we are at it, could you clear this up for me once and for all...filler episodes as i understand are non-canon, but isnt it just as likely that these episodes are not only used to "fill in" time for pacing purposes, but also to "fill in" gaps that the manga just cant cover (sorta making them semi-canon). i mean the edo-deidara escaping episode wasnt in the manga, BUT if very well could have happened...

i generally feel like if the timeline is preserved the episode is a bit more than non-canon. idk

Some stuff was never explained, for example:
- what happened with Sai's "brother"? How did he die. Also to see Sai displaying real emotions. We saw the always calm Sai being enraged and attacking with full power, that was nice. Also this way he and his "brother" got a "happy end" for their story.

it just begs the question of whether it was necessary to explain it or not. theres plenty of padding a story like this can have, but it becomes a choice between necessary info and over explanation. Sai could have become enraged during a fight without having to resurrect his boring pointless brother. and theres also no need to have said boring pointless brother have a happy ending, since the readers barely care about him, if at all. i sure dont

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- what happened with Hanzou, his connection to the samurai guy and to Pain.

the hanzo stuff was interesting and fairly necessary as well. he's in the category of ET zombies who actually mattered to the story and were interesting. at least in my book.

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- Sasori did die in a strange way: he let himself be stabbed. Now he got his happy ending. Also this let Kankuro become the official number one puppet master of this generation.

sasori was a full on villain. i dont see why a happy ending for him was necessary or desired. kankuro advanced way too quickly to be on sasori's level already. that made no sense.

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- Gaara also had a pain hidden in him like Naruto had before he met his "evil self" and then his mother. Usually in shonen manga when such mental problems are resolved the character also gets better at fighting

true, but it still doesnt require the fans to sit through a boring fight when an interesting one was possible. i agree that gaara is a big enough character to keep developing like this and i actually like the base story of what happened with his father here and the resolution of his mother's feelings, but like i've been saying. make it interesting, especially if they are fighting already anyway. itachi was testing sasuke in their fight and that was an awesome fight

Sai could have become enraged during a fight without having to resurrect his boring pointless brother. and theres also no need to have said boring pointless brother have a happy ending, since the readers barely care about him, if at all. i sure dont

It was about Sai and not his brother. My interpretation of Sai's whole condition of not having feelings was that it was largely caused by the trauma that he suffered when he had to fight his brother. Think of it as some kind of mental defense mechanism that saves one from becoming insane. Of course it was never explained in detail, left for our interpretation. So when meeting his brother his emotions came back, as if Sai was resurrected, and of course after this he becomes a very valueable and strong ninja of the alliance which is quite the cliche, but i liked this "happy end".

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

sasori was a full on villain. i dont see why a happy ending for him was necessary or desired. kankuro advanced way too quickly to be on sasori's level already. that made no sense.

He's not on Sasori's or Chiyo's level. But he had people to help him, not fighting alone as Sasori always did. Also i didn't expect much from a puppet master who doesn't have any puppets, i mean Kishimoto didn't even give him any puppets when he was brought back as a zombie. But again in my interpretation the way he let himself be killed had to be somehow explained. We already knew what led him to become a villain, and how he wanted to escape his despair over losing his parents by becoming a puppet that doesn't have any feelings. When he let himself be killed by his parents - and knowing how Chiyo did plan ahead to use the puppets of his parents - it was made clear that the puppets of his parents got to his inner human core that was inside the puppet and he realized that his life turned out to be a failure, because his goal of becoming perfect by becoming a puppet failed. So i interpreted that as being both a suicide and also accepting that he is human after all. But when he talks to Chiyo before he dies he doesn't acknoledge that, so his talk with Kankuro is a nice closure to his story.

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

true, but it still doesnt require the fans to sit through a boring fight when an interesting one was possible. i agree that gaara is a big enough character to keep developing like this and i actually like the base story of what happened with his father here and the resolution of his mother's feelings, but like i've been saying. make it interesting, especially if they are fighting already anyway. itachi was testing sasuke in their fight and that was an awesome fight

I don't agree with it being a boring fight because there was no fight at all
I think that i also complained about Gaara's father losing so easily when reading that in the manga, but later when we see the whole picture it turns out that having half or even an entire chapter of fighting between them would be pointless. The anime team could have added a few new moves to make it more interesting, but when they try they usually add just really boring an unimaginative stuff, so it's better if they don't add any filler fighting.

Kishimoto never explained how strong the Edo-Tensei zombies are exactly, so he can make them as strong as the plot needs it. But in this episode they say that their bodies are moving on their own, so one can assume that being on auto-pilot is not as effective as having the ninja fight with his own will controlling his body. If we look at it that way then we can just say that the 4th kazekage's fast defeat was Kabuto's failure to control all these ninja simultaneously.

But again in my interpretation the way he let himself be killed had to be somehow explained.

Wow, I disagree... To me this was already explained in the scene, and being killed by his parent's puppets was just poetic justice at its finest. I thought it was such a great exit for Sasori; sometimes over-explaining can ruin a scene. In this case, I thought the explanation was adequate, and certainly didn't require something as drastic as resurrecting the character from the dead, especially when Chiyo essentially explained why he allowed himself to die in her brief retrospect. As Itachi-san states here...

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

it just begs the question of whether it was necessary to explain it or not. theres plenty of padding a story like this can have, but it becomes a choice between necessary info and over explanation.

...So for Sasori to be brought back merely to serve as part of Kankuro's coronation for becoming the next master puppeteer was simply painful to read. Kankuro could have also just as well done what he did here(essentially deliver a preachy speech) by some simple self reflection and retrospecting. There were plenty better ways to go about this imo; but was his coronation even really necessary? The answer of course, is no. You state here:

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Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

[...]so Kishimoto decided to use them as plot devices to show us how much did the good guys grown.

However, I think it would've been much better to have instead showcased some of the rookies such as (Neji, Rock Lee, Shino, etc) in higher-level battles against some of the more powerful never before seen characters. Would this not have better displayed growth and team work as opposed to what we've been shown, not to mention ruining some epic death scenes? They could have just as well delivered preachy speeches in this scenario as well if it was that necessary.

To me, resurrection is something quite drastic, and for the quality of fights we've been shown, this was largely unnecessary and simply not worth it. I don't find many of the fights put forth by the rookies very impressive, and that goes for the ones who were even shown in non-trivial fights to begin with.

yea, i get that, but his brother was still boring and pointless i got my fill of sai' s development back when the picture book was explained. no further explanation needed for me. personally, i like when not everything is explained and the reader has to imagine some of the connections that aren't all spelled out in excruciating detail. as for sai being a better ninja now, that transformation just doesnt require ET shin to have had happen. it could have just as easily been one of his new friends that was being tortured or something to break his emotional wall and make him mad.

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He's not on Sasori's or Chiyo's level. But he had people to help him, not fighting alone as Sasori always did. Also i didn't expect much from a puppet master who doesn't have any puppets, i mean Kishimoto didn't even give him any puppets when he was brought back as a zombie.

he could have though. that made no sense to me. the 7 swordsmen mostly got their swords. why would kabuto even bring back sasori with no puppets? it would be like bringing itachi back without eyes. i did expect a lot from sasori. just think about who he was up against. sasori was a kage level fighter who beat the most powerful sand ninja ever and he cant beat a handful of jounin? even with deidara there too? his first fight with konkuro was like an adult stomping on a 5 year old and not that much time has passed. the whole scene felt forced and unreal to me.

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But again in my interpretation the way he let himself be killed had to be somehow explained.

like Captain Commando, I felt like I got enough explanation back during sasori's original death. no need to explain every last thought

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but later when we see the whole picture it turns out that having half or even an entire chapter of fighting between them would be pointless.

the same argument can be said about any fight if all you're looking for is story progression and character development. naruto is about fighting more than anything else. it's a story that connects the time in between fights. when a current kage is facing off against an older kage, i would like to see a fight. especially when there is a deep emotional attachment between the characters. it's father vs son like vader vs luke. would you have preferred empire strikes back to cut the last fight and just have vader's speech and luke's reaction at the end? the fight itself served a couple very important purposes

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Originally Posted by Captain Commando

To me, resurrection is something quite drastic, and for the quality of fights we've been shown, this was largely unnecessary and simply not worth it. I don't find many of the fights put forth by the rookies very impressive, and that goes for the ones who were even shown in non-trivial fights to begin with.

i totally agree with this. i would prefer a story without ET all together, but if it has to be there, then sparsely. like just the very significant and powerful ones. or just former akatsuki members. a small group would be more tolerable for me

Well, then it comes down to a matter of individual taste It was ok in for my taste. In the manga at least, in the anime they usually make things too lengthy.

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

why would kabuto even bring back sasori with no puppets?

Because Kishimoto didn't want him to fight any more, to avoid boring fights where he repeats his moves that we already know about. I think its still much less bullshit than him having all his puppets army and then he loses so quickly to rookies like Omoi, Sai and Kankuro. So if he either loses quickly because he has no puppets or he has a longer and thus boring fight, then i would choose the first option. The 3rd option would be that most of the battle is skipped, but then we would complain later how Kankuro and the others are not half dead by the time they sealed Sasori, because according to the plot they are figthing the whole day and then they can't even sleep at night because of the Zetsu clones.

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

the whole scene felt forced and unreal to me.

I can't argue with that My point was just that Kishimoto didn't give him puppets so that you would not feel it "forced and unreal" and simply accept that without his puppets this was the natural outcome, but if you also consider not giving him puppets as part of the whole situation then of course you are right it was forced. I just didn't care that much about that since Kishimoto never explained if he should give any tools to the ninja who are useless without their tools, so it was the author's freedom to choose what's best for the plot he imagined.

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

the same argument can be said about any fight if all you're looking for is story progression and character development. naruto is about fighting more than anything else.

It's the character development, but these are mostly secondary characters and some of them like Sasori had already revealed all their secret moves. So the author has to prioritize, either show more of the Sasori vs Kankuro fight or show more of the other fights. I was really interested in the other 3 kages because they were the best what past generations could offer and also in the fights of more interesting characters like Naruto (which will be next episode).

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Originally Posted by itachi-san314

would you have preferred empire strikes back to cut the last fight and just have vader's speech and luke's reaction at the end?

Naruto is the main character here not Gaara. But anyway i found that fight between them boring, most of the Naruto fights are more interesting than that was. I don't know why but i was never really interested in Star Wars, the ideas in it were pretty cool but the outcome was somehow boring to me.

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Originally Posted by Captain Commando

Wow, I disagree... To me this was already explained in the scene, and being killed by his parent's puppets was just poetic justice at its finest. I thought it was such a great exit for Sasori; sometimes over-explaining can ruin a scene. In this case, I thought the explanation was adequate, and certainly didn't require something as drastic as resurrecting the character from the dead, especially when Chiyo essentially explained why he allowed himself to die in her brief retrospect. As Itachi-san states here...

I didn't literally mean an explanation, and of course it was not given like that. I meant it about Sasori's character possibly changing, as he clearly failed in his goal to become an emotionless puppet but despite that he didn't say or think anything about this in his last moments. Also he helped Sakura and Chiyo with some important information even if he didn't have to. So it felt like Kishimoto didn't give a closure to this character, becuase he was clearly not meant to be a simply evil character who just dies as evil as he lived, like Kakuzu and Hidan. He was even given a story, flashbacks to his childhood, so i was really missing some closure there, and that's what he got here by talking with Kankuro.

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Originally Posted by Captain Commando

I don't find many of the fights put forth by the rookies very impressive, and that goes for the ones who were even shown in non-trivial fights to begin with.

What about the Shika-Ino-Choji trio? They were pretty epic. As for not being impressive, remember they are against legendary kages, none of them could really match up against these kages in 1on1, of course the exception being Gaara and Naruto. So what remains for them is to rely on teamwork and other stronger ninja like the generals.

Naruto's Chakra mode is pretty cool.
The fight on the beach was nice.
I still don't get the point of discussions with the dead shinobi.
It's not like they have their own will when it comes to fighting.
From time to time they do tend to drop some more or less interesting info.
This episode was not too bad.

Wow.. This episode was goooooood, but I still got confused about how Itachi got out of the reanimination. I know it had to do with Shishu however you spell his name and his eyes but got lost LOL..

The eyes were programmed to use a mind control justu with the command "protect Konoha," more or less. He originally planned for this to be used on Sasuke to mind control him into returning to the village if he continued to be a revenge driven rogue. Instead it ended up being used on himself and implanted that command over the orders he received as an edo. He's essentially still obeying an order, but now that order is "protect Konoha," and that means his new order is fighting against Akatsuki.